You Call Someone a Traitor, They'll Act Like One

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In a reality show based on pop culture’s most cunning and deceptive figures, things are expected to get wild. During this season of Peacock’s The Traitors, Alan Cumming assigned Survivor finalist Carolyn Wiger and Big Brother runner-up Danielle Reyes as the traitors in an anonymous game of “faithful, faithful, traitor.” But it didn’t take long for the traitors to betray one another — making a recent rumor much more interesting. Multiple sources and leaks suggest Reyes broke her NDA by making a deal with faithful Britney Haynes on the basis of — had she the chance (she did) — Reyes would recruit Haynes as a traitor so long as she led a vote against Wiger; sensible-sounding gossip to viewers who have wondered how Reyes performance could have possibly had this season’s faithfuls fooled.

“I think that [Dylan Efron] knew that [Danielle Reyes] was a traitor, and I was like a maybe-traitor,” Wiger told Men’s Journal, inciting the theories. “So yes, you can put it all cutely together in a little present and serve it up, like woo, but how much other crap did she have versus me? Come on. It is what it is — she got me out. But I think mainly because, yes, they knew she was a traitor and by ‘they,’ I mean Britney and Dylan.”

Carolyn and her Survivor co-star, Carson Garrett, host a Patreon-exclusive podcast together, but no longer follow one another on Instagram — inspiring the fanbase to spread that, in a since-deleted episode, Garrett exposed the Reyes NDA story, getting Wiger in trouble with Peacock. While there isn’t any evidence of the alleged episode, Garrett does express clear disdain for Reyes’s gameplay.

“"She was a traitor to the traitors,” Garrett said on the podcast. “I think she foreshadowed in her head, ‘I see Carolyn and me at the final five and Carolyn’s able to take me out — and Carolyn wins.” She she was being so individualistic that it just blinded everything.”

And to dive deeper into the “Reddit users theorized that Haynes, herself alluded to this NDA situation on the pod, telling Garrett and Wiger that Reyes was still so angry with her for what transpired on their season of Big Brother that she knew she “had to eat shit, gobble it up and apologize,” to be safe in case Reyes was a traitor. But this, of course, would be a sensible plan-of-action for anybody playing a murder mystery game with people they’d previously scorned.

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It could be that viewers are seeking answers for how the faithfuls of this season hadn’t yet found Reyes out — she holds her face in her hands, making tearless sobbing sounds and wailing around, going as far as to literally fall out of chairs over every vote and kill — a theatrical performance.

Wiger though, has had a couple of moments that form a genuinely solid case against her. During the chess game, for instance, when Wiger advocated for Vanderpump Rules star Tom Sandoval, as the answer to who the traitors designated the ‘leader of the group’ — a laughable guess, but a correct one.

“I shouldn’t have answered the question with ‘Tom.’ That’s my other mistake,” Wiger said to Men’s Journal. “That was suspicious and then I denied it. But this is where my human moments and my empathy and just me as a person come out. I did have a soft spot for Tom and I didn’t like when he got made fun of. And os when Tom was like, ‘I think I could be the leader’ or whatever, I just wanted Tom — for one moment — to feel like somebody else believed in him too.”

And who could forget that cringeworthy moment when competitors Dylan Efron and Sam Asghari asked each faithful to recall the color of Alan Cumming’s shoes the night prior — something a faithful should know. And Wiger’s response? Nervous laughter, clicking teeth and a few eye-rolls accompanied with "psh” sounds. Needless to say, suspicions must have been raised.

Ultimately, as of now, the rumor that Danielle cheated during the show is void of hard evidence. And if it were true, the situation surely compromises the integrity of the game — one that thrives on secrecy and deception.

But one thing is certain — this season’s drama among traitors is bigger than the game itself.

Carolyn Wiger and Danielle Reyes did not respond to request to comment.